[from my subindie.com review]



I can't believe I stumbled upon this... I found an EXCELLENT discussion on Ownership and the Legality surrounding creative works including our favorite rock star internet hero Jeff Tweedy. It's titled Who Owns Culture? You'll be most interested in Track 4, the actual discussion between Lawrence Lessig and Jeff Tweedy, moderated by Steve Johnson. The discussion took place in the New York Public Library on April 7th, 2005. It's somewhat lengthy, but highly intriguing... hitting on subjects such as Creative Commons, Wilco's live taping policy, the iTunes Music Store, Cover Songs / Remixing, and Copyright Extension v. Public Domain Works.



Jeff Tweedy has some great quotes regarding his view on music ownership: "Once you create something it doesn't exist except in the consciousness of the listener." "To me, The only people complaining are the people that are so rich I don't understand why they'd ever need to be paid again." At one point he points out his amazement that an artist hasn't come along and turned the world on it's head by saying "I don't take any more money, any more... I've made enough. I release records because it's what I do and it's because music is a beautiful, wonderful thing and we should share it." Though when asked how much money it would take for him to make that statement his response was one billion dollars. It's all sort of jovial, but really drives home his inner conscience of art for art's sake.



The discussion validly attacks the outcome of today's legal battle and begs the question... Do we want a culture that feels like it's illegal to listen to music? The final portion of the discussion leads into the irony of holding this discussion in a Library... people sharing and reading books for free? Open access to information? What a crazy concept.



The discussion is appropriately available for download for free from The Internet Archive.